The Days Before
by Locked-Valentine
Summary: Takes place before Umbrella came into things, unleashing the zombies upon the world. Jill takes part in the missions that come with her job, working to unravel cases that come her way while trying to understand what it is she feels for Chris. [JC]
1. Chapter 1

**[Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil or any of its characters, or anything else that might come from it. Other people have the honor of that.**

A woman clad in blue cargo pants and a matching blue shirt with the S.T.A.R.S. logo on it moved hastily out the door leading from her two story, relatively small white house with a bagel hanging precariously from her mouth as she shut the sturdy door behind herself and locked it with a key- one of many hanging from a jangling ring. This accomplished she shoved the keys into the pocket of her pants before shifting the folders she held in the crook of the other arm in an attempt to keep from dropping them even as she kept a tight grip on the mug of coffee she carried as well.

She proceed to move towards the white car parked in her driveway- a car that had seen better days- with the sun beating down relentlessly on her raven coloured hair. Moving to the drivers' side of the car, she was forced to take the folders out from under her arm so she could place them on the hood of the car, freeing up one of her hands so she could take the key ring back out of her pocket. The correct key was found and shoved unceremoniously into the lock of the car door, carrying out the job of unlocking the vehicle.

After tugging the door open, she leant in across the drivers' seat, resting her weight on the coffee mug-free hand before placing the cup gently into the cars built in cup holder and relieving herself of the steaming mug. This accomplished she proceeded to shove the same key she had used to unlock the vehicle into the ignition before she ducked out of the car, grabbing the folders that had been on the hood before grabbing the bagel out of her mouth, tearing a chunk off which she began to chew.

The woman slid into the drivers' seat, at last sitting down on it and then placed the stack of folders on the passengers' seat, chewing and swallowing the bite of toasted bagel covered in peanut butter she had taken. Another bite was taken from the bagel and a sip of the steaming liquid held in her blank white mug before she finally turned the vehicle on, throwing it into gear before looking out the rearview mirror as she proceeded to back up, all the while taking bites of the bagel that served as her breakfast until it was completely gone.

It took her about ten minutes to reach the destination she had been heading for so desperately, and when she finally made it to the RPD building where her office was held, she parked her vehicle before scrambling quickly to grab everything she had taken with her. She grabbed the folder off of the seat it had been placed on, glad to see that during her drive none had been pushed to the ground or out of place, and shoved it under the crook of her arm once again. She ripped the keys from the ignition and shoved them into her pocket again before grabbing the mug, which was the only other item she had brought with her and hastened out of the vehicle, shoving the door behind herself shut- after hitting the plastic lock down- before she moved towards the entrance to the building.

Upon finally entering the RPD building she moved as quickly as she could manage through the lobby, trying to avoid everyone she saw, not wanting to be delayed any further until she finally made it out of there and into the hallway leading towards the staircase upwards and the elevator which was nearby. She moved directly towards the stairs, completely ignoring the elevator doors and climbed them two at a time while being careful not to spill any of her coffee- which had grown considerably cooler. When she finally reached the top of the stairs she paused for a moment to adjust the slipping pile of folders before continuing on, one destination in mind.

She had to keep herself from bursting into the set of doors she had been heading towards when she finally reached them, not wanting to make a big scene and make it even more noticeable that she had been missing. She took a deep breath, standing outside the doors in an attempt to collect herself before she slowly turned the handle of the door, cracking it open slowly as she peeked through the ever growing opening in at the meeting room she had been told to report to the previous day as soon as her shift began.

She made it all the way into the room- trying to look as small as possible- and had her back to the room so she could shut the door when she was finally acknowledged, the man at the front of the room standing beside a board speaking in a calm, cool voice. "Valentine, you're late."

Jill winced, turning to face the room and the people occupying it with a sheepish grin before nodding her head. "Yes, I'm sorry Wesker, lost track of time. Won't happen again."

Wesker regarded her silently for a moment before turning back to the board with a marker in hand; resuming the work he had been going at before she had entered. "I should hope not."

With a small sigh- one containing relief at the fact that he hadn't made a bigger deal of it- she moved towards an empty seat, one beside Chris Redfield and took it, moving her attention towards the board Wesker was working on as she set everything down on the table. She gave a small nod in response to Chris' greeting before turning her attention fully to Wesker.

"Now, as I was saying when we go the building to commence with the stakeout, two people will go here," His no nonsense-toned voice filled the room as she continued with the speech he had been making before Jill had entered, and he pointed towards a circle he had made around a labeled box that served as the building he spoke of, moving the black marker between the three circles around and in the building as he explained. "Two here, and two here. We'll be working in partners to secure the area and try to catch the next attack we're expecting to happen. I expect you all to know your roles in this mission, and I expect it to go off without a hitch." He turned away from the board, having finished with the explanation of it and regarded the people in the room. "Are there any questions about what will be happening? Any more clues you've come up with on your own?"

His gaze rested particularly on Jill, disapproval emanating from him though his expression stayed completely blank, revealing no emotion. It was clear he expected questions from her considering she had missed a bit of the meeting, and was waiting for her to ask for an explanation of everything once again. Luckily for Jill they had gone over some of the finer points of the plan the day before and she was pretty sure she was up to speed on everything. She had no questions; however she did have something to offer.

"Yesterday we decided that the women attacked didn't seem to have anything vital in common however… upon further checking over of the files, I noticed that they were all women who at some point in their lives had, had money troubles. I investigated this further, thinking there might be something there and saw that they all got loans from a certain loan 'business'." Jill cleared her throat, glancing down at the closed folders in front of herself for a minute before looking back up at Wesker and continuing on. "I found that they still owed money back and it seems they were late on their payments, some of them even tried to skip town and avoid paying the money back. I think maybe this could be the motive behind the killings."

Wesker looked at her, face as always revealing nothing though he gave off an air of thoughtfulness as he considered her idea. "Very good Jill. I think just maybe you might have come across something. We were focusing too much on the connection they had in their jobs, and didn't think of investigating any further angles to find a connection. It seems maybe it didn't have just to do with the fact that the four women were in the drug dealers or prostitutes with a record." He turned to write on the board, drawing a bubble with motive in the middle before drawing a line and writing down loan.

"Alright, get back to your desks until I call you all back again so we can head out and get done whatever else you need to. I expect you all to be armed and ready to go after your lunch breaks because we'll be heading out at 5 o'clock to start the stakeout. Its 8:30 now people, more than enough time to finish up the paperwork from last weeks case and to get together everything else. I'll start getting the vehicles ready to go and Barry, you can come with me to put together the weapons supply. Brad, Joseph, Chris, Jill, you're all dismissed."

Those told to leave stood up from their seats and gathered together everything they had carried with them to the meeting, filing one by one out the door to head down the hallway to their offices while Barry and Wesker stayed behind to discuss everything they needed to get ready for the mission.

Jill walked alongside Chris as they headed back towards the S.T.A.R.S. offices. The two of them shared one as they were considered partners when there was a need for pairings on missions- such as the one they were going to embark on later in the day. All of the offices were in the same area of the hall, either separated by a wall or across the hall from the others.

As Joseph and Brad turned to the left towards a door- the office they shared- Jill and Chris turned right, directly across the hall from the two of them and stepped into their shared office, making their ways towards their separate desks, one in each corner of the room in the corners closest to the far wall. The two of them were unfortunate enough not to have a window in their relatively small- at least for two people to share- office, getting their only light from the bulb hanging above.

Jill sat down at her own desk, placing the folders in one corner of it and the now completely stone cold coffee in front of herself and out of the way before she rested her back against the uncomfortable wooden chair the S.T.A.R.S. members were blessed with. Luckily for them, even though the chairs weren't the most comfortable, they usually didn't have to suffer too much time spent in them.

Glancing across the room she noted that Chris had taken his seat as well and had proceeded to prop his feet upwards on his desk, leaning back in the chair. He grinned across at her, seeing her looking and finally broke the silence that had engulfed the two of them. "Good job finding the lead Jill. I think you managed to get yourself off of Wesker's black list, at least for today."

Jill grinned in answer to his words, shaking her head with a small sigh. "Yeah, well I'm glad for that at least. So you ready for the action we'll be getting tonight?"

Chris gave her an odd look- it seemed he was barely managing to contain a grin and laughter before he finally managed to compose himself, shrugging his shoulders lightly. "Ahh, I don't have much to do. I'll get around to it eventually. For now I think I'll just take a break." With that said he propped his arms behind his head, closing his eyes as if he was going to take a nap.

Jill rolled her eyes, unable to contain a grin before she went about grabbing a few papers that had been sitting on her desk when she came in. She read them over silently- they had to do with the mission they had been working on the previous week- one they had accomplished successfully- before she picked up a pen and began finishing up the report all of the members involved were expected to do.

She heard rustling from across the room and looked up to see Chris shifting his position once again, apparently deciding to get down to work. He shrugged out of his green Kevlar vest before taking his boot clad feet from off of his desk, swiping a hand without thinking across his cargo pants as he smoothed them out upon taking a normal position in his seat. A slight baggy- though not so baggy as to hide the muscular body beneath the outfit- shirt was revealed upon his taking the vest off, one that was blue and like Jill's had the S.T.A.R.S. insignia on the arm of it.

Jill started slightly as he began writing away on a sheet of paper, realizing she had been staring at him like an idiot the whole time and quickly ducked her head down to work away at her report, berating herself for gawping. She had no idea why she had lost focus completely just because he was removing one small article of clothing. She had no time to waste if she wanted to be ready for the mission later that day, meaning she had no time to wonder about this.

She wondered if she was just tired, after all she had spent a good part of the night going over the folders so she would be ready for the next day. However, a part of her didn't accept this as the full reasoning. A part of her wondered if there wasn't something more to the lapse in focus.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: I'm very sorry at how long it took for me to get this chapter out, there's been a lot of stuff that's slowed me down, and to add to that I was going through a bit of writer's block. Though this isn't much, I wanted to get something out there to add to the story and to assure I haven't given up on it. Next chapter I plan to have them going on the mission finally. Thanks very much for your patience in this chapter's coming out.**

* * *

After working away at the report with renewed vigor for a while, Jill finally managed to complete it, grateful that there hadn't been any further distractions. At least not many or ones that she would admit to.

It seemed that whenever she heard the scratching of Chris' pen on paper stop for even a moment, she felt a prickling sensation on the back of her neck until the scratching started up once again.

She refused to look up from her own report even briefly to check and see if there was anything to this sensation- writing it off as anticipation for the mission they were to embark on that afternoon messing with her senses or something of the like. All it would have taken was one quick glance upwards, but she was stubborn enough not to want to put any stock into the whole silly affair.

Pushing any and all thoughts on the matter out of her head Jill pushed her wooden chair away from the desk and stood up with her papers in hand, at last ready to hand them over to the Captain summing up the case they had been written for. She hit the edges of the papers against the top of her desk to hit them in line with one another before moving towards the door leading out of her shared office, not bothering to say a word to her partner, or even to spare a glance in his direction.

As soon as she had stepped outside of the office- luckily without feeling any more annoying prickles on her neck- she felt some tension leave her body. This served to annoy her further- she couldn't believe that she was so unsettled over nothing. The only solution she could come up with was that she needed to take some vacation time for herself soon before she burnt herself out. She couldn't afford to be so off her game over the smallest things when she had an important mission coming up. If it got any worse she wouldn't trust herself to perform in later missions. Perhaps the stress of the job was finally getting to her.

With a sigh she started heading down the hall and away from the office she had exited, heading towards the office just through the room the team had met in that morning where Wesker resided.

It was without any further problems that she made it to the Captain's office where she knocked quietly on the closed door with his name engraved on a brass plate, papers firmly in hand. She heard a muffled, "Come in" before she turned the door knob and stepped into the room to be met with the sight of Wesker sitting at his desk in a chair which looked much more comfortable then the one she had to deal with, head hunched over a stack of papers he was studying intently.

"Captain, just wanted to drop of my report for last week's case." Jill said without any hint of meekness in her tone- despite the events at that mornings meeting.

He glanced up at her briefly- expression as unrevealing as ever- and nodded in acknowledgement before waving one hand absently towards a plastic paper holder on his desk labeled reports. "You know the drill. Leave it there."

Without bothering to reply to this, Jill merely slipped the papers into the designated spot before turning to leave the office. She had just moved to step outside of the office when she was stopped by Wesker's deep voice.

"I hope you're prepared for this afternoon's stakeout despite your tardiness this morning, Valentine. We can't afford any mistakes as I'm sure you know if we want to catch this killer. I know how much you want this."

If she blushed easily- which luckily she didn't- Jill was sure that her face would have been red at his words. However, she composed herself quickly and turned to face him, tone confident as she spoke. "I assure you, I'm ready Captain. Just lost track of time this morning. Like I said, won't happen again."

He finally set aside the papers he had been staring at the whole time and met her gaze, the slightest hint of amusement colouring his tone. "I'd hate to see you lose track of time this afternoon and missing the stakeout completely. We won't wait, you know. And don't bother making promises you might not be able to keep."

This time Jill couldn't help the embarrassment she felt as it burnt her neck, threatening to rise into her face if she didn't get out of there soon. "Yes sir. I'll be ready."

With that she left the office, neck still burning in shame as she moved out of the meeting room and into the hall, planning on heading back to her office to prepare in advance for heading out later that afternoon.

Unfortunately, she ran almost head first into Chris as she turned the corner around the door into the hall and was bumped backwards into the wall as he stumbled back with a surprised look on his face.

"Wooow, Valentine, watch where you're going at such a speed. You could take someone more fragile then me right out."

Jill refused to dignify that with an answer and instead moved right on past him, throwing a word of advice over her shoulder. "Don't linger too long when you drop that report off, Wesker might find a way to ruffle those carefully arranged feathers."

"I doubt it. I'm not as easily bothered as you, Jill." Though she didn't bother to turn around a this words, she could hear the smirk in what he said, and rolled her eyes as she turned into her office once again, resisting the urge to bury her face in her arms when she had sat down.

* * *

Chris had been a while back in the office after delivering his own report- thankfully with no more witty remarks to throw Jill's direction after their last encounter- when Jill finally finished gathering together all of her equipment for the approaching mission.

She was determined to be ready early after that morning's late arrival and didn't bother hiding it from the co-workers who dropped in at their office throughout the day to discuss further details that needed to be known for everything to go off without a hitch, and of course from the ones who just dropped by to socialize for a while with the two of them.

Even though a few teasing words were thrown in her direction every now and then, Jill didn't really mind it. Despite the fact that she didn't particularly enjoy being bugged about her shortcomings that particular day- not to mention word had gotten out about the Captain's little speech to her- Jill was glad that she was finally beginning to feel comfortable with the S.T.A.R.S. members now that she had been with them for a while.

To be honest, it was a lonely existence when people barely talked to you when you were new to the city and recently switched to the job. She was finally away from being uncomfortable with new people waiting for her to show she wasn't fit for the job, and from the people who wondered if a woman could really do the job. She had earned the other S.T.A.R.S. respect from the various missions they had been on together and she was finally getting friendly with them.

All in all, she couldn't say that she was unhappy with the switch. She was glad to be a part of a team trying to help people in dangerous situation, and saving lives. It was what she had always wanted, and she finally had it.

Pulling herself out of this reverie, she glanced down at the watch strapped around her left wrist to check the time, surprised to see how quickly the day had seemed to fly. It was time for her to head off and meet up with the rest of the team so they could finally head out.

She grabbed up everything from her desk, strapping on her standard issue Beretta and sliding on a pair of black leather kid gloves before she shot a glance in the direction of her partner, who had begun to move around after seeing her getting ready. "You all set to head out?"

He nodded his head briefly, strapping his own weapon and gloves on before they headed from the office together, moving towards the meeting room for what they hoped to be the last time that particular day.

When they made it to the room, Barry and Wesker were already there, and Brad and Joseph entered the room together shortly after.

Wesker glanced briefly around the room at each of the members before going quickly over the finer points of the plan that had been settled on, to make sure everyone had it. "Now, Barry and I will be set up here, across from the main door and garage door leading into the building, looking out for any signs of trouble, while Jill and Chris sit on the opposite side of the building at the back entrance and Brad and Joseph sit to the other remaining side across the street near the fire escape. Luckily we don't need anyone of the fourth side before there's no way you can exit on that side, there are no windows and the wall is right against the building next door."

He leveled his cool gaze on each of them as he spoke, making sure he got his words across as they all looked on silently, carefully attentive of everything he said. "Now, we'll stay in communication via the radio handsets you'll find inside each of the separate vehicles when we head outside, and if anyone see's anything suspicious at all, you inform everyone else before making any moves. If something does happen, we'll all move towards our respective entrances and secure them before trying to get into the building at all. We then make sure we let whatever's going down at least get started before we step in, so we know for sure we have who we're looking for. Remember, we're going by the pattern that seemed to show, when it comes to guessing that something at all is going to happen tonight."

Finally, losing some of the edge he had, had in his words up until that time, he continued to speak, assured of himself that his team was ready and that every word had hit home. He knew he was by no means leading a foolish team, and on this rare occasion, let it show for those perceptive enough to catch it in his words. "You all know your positions and everything else that needs to be done and I feel confident as you're all highly trained and have gone through cases like this before. If there are no questions, then I see no reason to stand around here any longer."

Picking up three keys, he tossed one to Brad, one to Barry and one to Chris before saying the final words that caused a flurry of movement amongst the people gathered. "Now let's move out.


End file.
